Newbie deployment question: I have a WAR file that I want to unzip to a directory, then install the app as an exploded directory.

At the point where I am deploying the app on the Managed Server in the Console, does it matter where this exploded directory is staged?
Or does it have to be stored in a particular stage directory known to WLS?

I eventually found out that Cognos has to be staged outside of the WLS domain, in a shared directory. This allowed me to deploy successfully, but now we have startup errors (the subject of another post).